Combining a fascinating world with a population of interesting characters and a pace best described as breakneck, culminating with nail-biting action and a surprising denouement, the first novel in the Clockwork Century grabs your attention and refuses to let go.

In a city with a pace that can easily be described as breakneck, I'd never seen anything like it: throngs of smiling people strolling leisurely during such a gray and chilly month, looking around with wonder and discussing the same topic.

As Davis noted, O'Malley moved at "breakneck" speed Sunday, attending church services and then continuing a Baltimore tradition by riding around to get-out-the-vote rallies in a caravan of more than a dozen dump trucks.

[Stricker] said that the reason Google holds events like this one was that "we hear from a lot of you that with the kind of breakneck pace of innovation that we go through at Google, it's nice for us to kind of let you catch your breath."

Now Tom, who resolved to make an impression, as it is termed, was dressed in the newest and most fashionable morning visit costume, drove up to the hall-door at that kind of breakneck pace with which your celebrated whips delight to astonish the multitude, and throwing the reins to a servant, desired, if he knew how to pace the horse up and down, to do so; otherwise to remember that he had a neck.